Page 17 of To Catch A Rook

I laughed to myself and picked up my pace. Time to slay the day.

“Drop the fucking gun and put your hands behind your head.”

My words were commanding; authoritative. The timbre of a well-trained soldier. Or, as my father expected, a general of war.

The gangbanger, in his early twenties at most, didn’t stop his finger from releasing the safety. I let out a frustrated sigh before aiming at his trigger hand and firing my bullet, shooting his finger clean off.

I felt nothing as I barreled toward the sobbing man, now collapsed in a heap on the cold asphalt, screaming in pain as he cradled his semi-amputated hand to his chest.

I had warned him, but he hadn’t complied. We were victims or victors of our own choices. Tonight, the gang leader would choose to lose his finger, or lose his life. But the choice would be his to make.

“Where are you getting your guns, Malachi?”

The greasy blond man’s bloodshot eyes glared back at me through the evident pain, clamping his lips in blatant defiance.

Death it was, then.

I rolled my shoulders back, the muscles tight beneath my navy suit jacket. I’d already put in a day with bureau duties, following up on the latest investigation that had brought me back to Carlisle. Now I was spending my evening working on theotherset of responsibilities that ruled my life.

I was getting too old for this. Only two years away from forty, but I might as well be seventy-five. I wouldn't live that long.

I pressed my boot onto his knee and bore down on him. The entirety of my 250-pound frame dislocated his knee cap within seconds. The piercing shriek of pure agony filled the abandoned alley, but no one was around to hear him.

No one but me.

“I’m asking again, Malachi. The twins didn’t supply your last three shipments, and the family hasn’t sanctioned their distribution. Who supplied the guns?”

I held my boot over his other knee, the actual threat hanging in the fetid air of a dry mountain night. Malachi stared at me through vengeful eyes, but still he said nothing.

I had to admire his ability to look death in the face with such outward hatred. His arrogance reminded me of my brother, another raging man who also chose to lose his life than admit defeat.

I could admire the tenacity, but the misplaced skill wouldn’t be doing him any favors tonight.

I cocked my trusty Glock—not the FBI issued handgun currently tucked safely in my sedan, but the pistol I had been gifted on my fifteenth birthday—and pressed the butt of the silencer into the bleeding man’s temple.

“You broke our agreement, Malachi. Do you know what Antonio does to people foolish enough to cross him? My brothers are sadists, but he—he is the devil himself.”

The sniveling, shivering sack of shit was going into shock, his body violently shaking against the cool metal pressed against his skin. The combination of fear and excess adrenaline coursed through his veins as potent as the strongest opiate.

I had been conditioned against this kind of biological response by the time I was twelve. Fear made the most seasoned soldier a liability—and the Carlos Cartel didn’t make allowances for liabilities. Even from the little boys they trained to become men.

I pressed the barrel deeper into his sweating skin.

“Your guns killed that ten-year-old boy last week, you sick fuck. Your guns murdered his mother and maimed his brother. Who should I hold responsible for this, Malachi? You? Or your supplier?” I lightly pressured the trigger; it clicked ominously.

Malachi choked on a desperate sob before succumbing to the inevitable.

“Al-al-varez.”

Finally.

I took one last look at the sorry fuck who’d been brash enough to cross the family and shot a bullet into his brain. He fell to the pavement in a slump.

A soothing cold slid through my veins like it always did when I took a life. Malachi Levi was not a good man, and the sorry stain of his sad existence wouldn’t bring me nightmares tonight.

I took out a silk handkerchief from my trousers and rubbed it over Old Faithful meticulously before dabbing at the splatter of blood that had misted my cheeks and collar.

My fingers flew as I sent a text to the waiting clean-up crew. Before leaving the alleyway for the warmth of my Land Rover, I took one last look at the oozing corpse at my feet.

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